Globally Connected @ FIT: Slender and Beautiful: On Standards in the Fashion Industry

Paolo Volonté, Author of Fat Fashion: The Thin Ideal and the Segregation of Plus-Size Bodies (2021), in conversation with FIT Professor Yuni Kawamura.

The discussion will revolve around an analysis of the contentious issue of the tyranny of slenderness in fashion. In closely examining the thin ideal and the segregation of fatness in the fashion system, and focusing on womenswear, it will explore fashion as a situated practice from the perspective both of producers and consumers, industry and society, technology and the body. 

Based on the discussion of the countertrends that are increasingly emerging in today’s fashion, it will be argued that a possible change in the body ideal cultivated by fashion will not depend on random events promoted by the fashion system, but on social changes of a more general nature.

Paolo Volonté is associate professor of cultural sociology at Politecnico di Milano, where he teaches the Sociology of Fashion. He is also co-editor of the International Journal of Fashion Studies. His work addresses fashion professions (design, styling), fashion and art, and the Italian fashion system.

Dr. Yuniya (Yuni) Kawamura, professor, Social Sciences, earned her PhD in sociology from Columbia University and is trained as a professional designer at Bunka College of Fashion in Japan, Kingston University in the U.K., and FIT.

Hosted by the Office of International Programs, History of Art, and the Cultural Fellows.

This virtual event is free and open to the public; REGISTER HERE.